William Kennedy - Roscoe

“Is he in trouble?”

“No.”

“Is it the head injury? He was fine when he called.”

“He’s in the office. In his chair. Now, don’t hold me to this, Vee, but I think he killed himself.”

She squeezed her bitten cruller between fingers and palm, rolling it into a wad of dough as she looked at Roscoe.

“No,” she said, and shook her head, “he wouldn’t do that.”

“Maybe he didn’t do it. I could be wrong.”

“You’re certain he’s dead.”

“I’m certain.” And he put Elisha’s wallet on the table.

“That bastard. That bastard !”

“Atta girl. You tell him.”

She dropped the wadded cruller and it rolled across the table to Roscoe. She picked up the wallet and put it against her face.

“He wasn’t ready to die,” she said, and the tears were coming now. Roscoe couldn’t look at them.

“Go get dressed, Vee. I’ll take you down to the mill.”

When she was dressed and they were in the car she asked Roscoe, “Why do you say suicide?”

“He burned papers and files he didn’t want anybody to see. It was a methodical ending.”

“How did he do it?”

“I don’t know. Not with a gun.”

“Why didn’t he come home and do it?”

“Maybe he didn’t want to make a mess for you. Maybe he didn’t want anybody saving him. Or maybe the idea of death arrived in such a perfect state that he had to act instantly, a fatal muse descending, and there was only submission, no alternative.”

“Something’s very wrong with me. I never saw it coming.”

“None of us did,” Roscoe said.

“It’s me he left. He was through with me.”

“Nonsense. Who’d ever leave you?”

“He ran away from something, or somebody. Who else is there to run away from?”

“There was no cowardice in him,” Roscoe said. “He’d face anything.”

“You’re so loyal. To both of us.”

“I’m not loyal,” Roscoe said. “I’m a traitor.”

“Of course you are. God should give the world more traitors like you.”

When he drove into the office parking lot at the mill, Roscoe saw men already at work in the traffic manager’s office, so, rather than subject Veronica to their scrutiny, he parked at the side entrance. They went briskly in past the security cubicle, where Roscoe saw Frank Maynard and two of his guards whispering — The word is out — and up the back stairs to Elisha’s office. Joe Spivak sat by the door, guarding the integrity of the death room. Nothing had been taken away or added, but as Roscoe entered, the room became an antechamber where he sensed he had to begin. Begin what? Not courting the widow. He might get to that. Might. This was something else, and he knew it wouldn’t easily be defined. He also knew he now could not quit the Party; and he knew Elisha had known that would happen.

Veronica walked to the dead Elisha and looked down at him, shaking her head no, no, no. “Oh Lord, Roscoe, it’s true.” And she crumpled in front of Elisha.

Roscoe gestured to Joe Spivak to get out, then lifted Veronica into the large leather chair where Gladys had also sat to stare at her dead love. “Slow, now, Vee. Take it slow.”

“He doesn’t even look a little bit sick,” Veronica said, her eyes wet again.

“Maybe he wasn’t sick.”

“He had to be.”

She stood up and walked to Elisha, hiked her skirt and straddled his lap, ran her hands through his hair.

“Were you sick, Elisha? How could you be that sick without my knowing it? You’re already a chunk of rubber.” She gave him a weeping kiss. “What went so wrong you had to quit everything in such a hurry? You couldn’t wait to see your son come home from winning the war? Whatever it was we could’ve fixed it.” She lifted his left hand and studied it, then took his diamond ring and gold watch from the dead finger and wrist. Lacking pockets, she put them inside her brassiere. She stared at Elisha, then kissed him and sat back. “Look at you. Look what you’ve done to yourself. Bastard.” She slapped his face.

“Veronica,” Roscoe said. “Get a grip.”

He helped her stand and she tried to stop weeping.

“I thought I knew him. He’s a dead stranger.”

“Staying alive isn’t anybody’s obligation,” Roscoe said. “I’m betting he had a reason.”

Veronica let Roscoe put his arms around her while she wept — spasmic, throaty crying. Roscoe held grief in his arms and knew he could die of happiness, a traitor, embracing his best friend’s wife. Yes, it’s true, Elisha, old pal. You’re dead and we’re not. Then Veronica stabbed him in the heart with her breast, a wound that meant nothing to her. Sweet Roscoe, comfort me, let me fail in your arms, hold me close, feel how soft I am. But this is all you get, and don’t think this counts. You’re a wonderful fellow, Roscoe. Don’t crowd me.

“It’s okay, Vee,” he said to her. “Let it out.”

“Oh, Roscoe, Roscoe,” she said. “What is going on here?”

“A temporary mystery. We’ll figure it out.”

“I loved him so.”

“Sure you did.”

She raised her head off his shoulder, trying to stop crying, and he saw she was abashed by their embrace. What a surprise. She smiled and stepped back from him, walked to the desk, and picked up the photo of Elisha, Roscoe, and herself in the winner’s circle with Pleasure Power the day he won the Travers at Saratoga.

“I want to take this home,” she said.

“I’ll get an envelope.”

She picked up the photo of Alex in his army uniform. “We have to tell Alex,” she said.

“We’ll call the army, have them cable him. I’ll do that.”

Roscoe would do it all. And Alex would come home safely from the war to find that his father, not he, was the post-armistice casualty. Roscoe slid the Saratoga picture into a large envelope and sealed its clasp. He walked Veronica down the stairs and toward the line of men arriving for work in the machine shop. They had all heard about Elisha, and Roscoe answered their condolences with nods and salutes as he and Veronica passed them.

Sorry, Missus Fitz.

The sunlight was making intensely black shadows of the men as they stood in line to punch the time clock in the mill. They all spoke their regrets.

Sorry, sorry, Missus Fitz. Sorry, sorry. Really sorry.

“Good morning, men, and thank you,” Veronica said in a sharp, recovering voice, raising her head to meet their eyes. “Good morning, yes, good morning, men, and thank you. Thank you so much. Such a beautiful day to die.”

Roscoe moved silently into the theater with the crowd, the seats filling quickly. When the curtain rose, ten men and ten women were in two lines on stage, all in white tie and tails, tap-dancing and singing, with brio, “Somebody Else Is Taking My Place.” As the performers danced, the heads of one man and one woman flew off and sailed across the stage to land atop the headless torsos of another man, another woman, whose heads were flying to the dancing torsos of yet another man, another woman, and so it went until all twenty singing heads were flying to and fro across the stage, perfectly synchronized in the labyrinthine choreography of their arcs.

Roscoe, sitting in the balcony, saw Elisha pushed onto the stage from the wings, obviously confused to find himself in the midst of this performance. But as the singing heads crisscrossed in air, Elisha seemed to realize this was a command performance for him, and he moved his own head from side to side in rhythm with the music and the dancing torsos.

“Yes, I do understand the question that’s being asked,” Elisha said aloud. “It’s the music of the spheres.”